Goodbye Won't Last Long
by OkobojiOddOne
Summary: Believe it or not, this was my Comp. project! It was so much fun, but I'm a little worried about how my teacher will react to it. Lol. But, it's a flashback of Hawkeye's. VERY H/M one shot! Really though...can you expect anything else from me! :-P Enjoy!


_Author's Note: So, I'm pretty sure Mr. Stevens is the best teacher EVER! Our assignmnt was to write a short story that could be about ANYTHING! I asked him if it could even be fanfic and was SHOCKED when he said yes! Yay! So, here ya go. A story that will probably get a lot of laughs from him, but I hope you like it. Tell me what you think, as always, and of course I'll still be working on Missing Out. _

**Goodbye Won't Last Long**

Everything about me seemed strange. My own hands looked old, scarred, and twisted. I used to be able to do great things with a scalpel after all those years of training, but now I can only do so much before my hands start aching, arthritis eating them from the knuckles. The younger surgeons around here can go for hours longer than I can, but they're also about half my age. They're the right age where I could be any of their fathers, but then again one of them is my daughter.

I lean back in my office chair, put my feet up on my desk like I always do, and am soon lost in memories of a time when I was young...

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

**July 28, 1953: Ouijambu, South Korea**

Tents are coming down and happy, excited chatter is rumbling in the small valley where our unit, the 4077th MASH, has been located for the past three years. Most of the chatter consists of different goodbyes, both heartfelt and long awaiting. Some of the doctors and nurses swap addresses like kids waiting for their parents to come pick them up from summer camp.

I, Benjamin Franklin Pierce, on the other hand, have butterflies in my stomach that are starting to feel more like vultures when more of the tents come down. I always hated being in this hell, but when the shells stopped going off last night and since it's relatively quiet today, I'm starting to think that maybe I'll miss this place. I've never felt closer to anyone, not even my father after my mother died, than I do with these people. I'll miss my fellow 'Swamp rats', especially my best friend, but In all honesty though, I'll miss my 'enemy' the most.

That 'Army brat' sure has left a mark on me. When we first got here, I hated that head nurse with a passion, but after Ferret Face left and when her marriage with Donald was falling through, she opened up a lot more and I was finally able to see the real Margaret. The one that wasn't afraid to let people get close to her. The one that showed her feelings,

let her hair down once in awhile, and filled my boots with oatmeal.

"All aboard for the 8063rd!" Sergeant Rizzo bellowed through his unlit, stumpy cigar. My heart almost stopped. All the nurses would be leaving to go to the other MASH unit to help with its consolidation, and I still haven't told Margaret how I feel about her. How every time I see her the room seems to light up and all the bad stuff about the war seems to disappear into the green canvas…that isn't here anymore. Seeing all of those tent frames standing there like skeletons puts a bit of finality to the war; something I thought would be wonderful. I thought that this day would be the happiest day of my life, the day I would finally go home after countless hours of surgery and numerous shellings, but that wasn't the case. I want to go back home to Maine, but for some reason I actually seem to want to stay here. I can't believe myself!

I'm clammy, my knees are shaking, I feel like I have enough nausea to light up the city of Toledo, and my heart seems to be in my throat. That and I seem to be delusional. So, I either have the flu or I'm in love. I think I know which one it is too…

I watch the nurses leave in the converted school bus, knowing that my nurse chasing days are almost over. Not over completely though. There's one nurse I still want to run a marathon with. Okay, so in my earlier days here that could have been taken quite differently. Not this time though. I want a lifetime, not just a night.

Father Mulcahy is heading towards the ambulance now to go to the 8063rd with the nurses. Charles will be following him, riding in the same Jeep as Margaret. I wish I could trade places with him… I walk over to where our Chaplin is saying his goodbyes to Colonel Potter and BJ. The red-haired man gave the colonel a rather strange answer to his so long, but I shrug it off and let my humor do the talking for me as I say my adieu to a very good friend. "You know Father, since the day I met you I've always wanted to tell you something…your shirts on backwards." I expect this to get a big laugh out of the gentle-hearted man, but he hesitates until I pull him into a farewell hug until he laughs, and even then it was like he hadn't heard what I said.

Now is the time I've been dreading for so long. I'm walking over to the Jeep where Charles and Margaret were fighting a minute ago, but now he's giving her a book and kissing her hand. This makes me extremely jealous, but I know I can't say anything. There's no way she has the same feelings for me as I do for her. I just stand idly by, trying to think of what I'm going to say to her to tell her goodbye. I hear her saying

something about wanting to find a guy that's just like BJ and him saying that she dissevers the best. She laughs and those vultures in my stomach instantly turn into pterodactyls. After a tearful goodbye on both parts from Colonel Potter, a man that has been more of a father to her than 'Howitzer' Al Houlihan, it's my turn.

I take a deep breath, but that doesn't help. She had been looking down, maybe trying to figure out what she's going to say to her arch nemesis. When she looks up though, I notice that her eyes are suspiciously moist. "So uh…listen." 'What the hell was that?!' I yell at myself. 'The woman you obviously have feelings for is standing right in front of you and this could be the last time you ever see her! Is that all you can say!?' I told that little voice in my head to shut up and took a step forward, not really knowing what I was going to do, being three feet closer to her. She was taking a step towards me too and all of a sudden, that horrible nervous feeling in my stomach seemed to vanish, if only for a

moment. We were in each other's arms, before either of us really knew what we were doing, sharing a kiss more passionate than all of the other ones we've shared before. I noticed, to my complete surprise, that she is hesitant in letting go of me, as I am with her, when the kiss was reluctantly ending. Neither of us really started the kiss and neither of

us really ended it. It just happened… "Well, see ya." 'You've GOT to be kidding, right?!' Again, that voice in the back of my head returned along with those stupid pterodactyls. 'Tell her! Tell her! That kiss meant something. What harm will it do to tell her that you love her now? Something could come of it; stranger things have happened around here…' Before I had time to respond to that voice in my head, she was in the

Jeep and the driver started the engine.

She turned around and waved back at us.

BJ could see the look on my face. "Go for it Hawk," he was saying to me, somehow knowing what I was thinking.

"What?" I asked, caught a little off guard by the fact that he knew what I was feeling.

"You better hurry, she's getting away," he laughed.

"MARGARET!" I yelled and sprinted towards the Jeep that's now about forty feet away. At first I didn't think they had heard me, but the Jeep stopped and the beautiful blond in the passenger seat got out and stood by the back tire. "Margaret wait." I ran, slowing down a little only when I was about three yards away.

"Pierce, what is it?" she asked me. She had a concerned, but soft look in her eyes.

I reached down and grabbed her hands. I'm still breathing hard, but get what I want to say out in the open. "I'm sorry I never told you this before…and I know nothing could ever come of it…and I don't know why I'm even telling you this because I know you don't feel the same way about me…and I know-" I was cut off by her soft finger on my lips.

"Hawkeye," she was looking at me, her eyes sparkling with laughter, "what exactly are you trying to tell me?" I can see that she knows perfectly well what I want to say next, but I say it anyway, just to get it off my chest.

"Major you might find this hard to swallow…but I love you." The pterodactyls were gone, replaced again by those butterflies I got anytime I just looked at the beautiful nurse in front of me. She blushed slightly, something I've only seen her do once before, and smiled from ear to ear…

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

Something brought me back into the present, although what I'm not sure. I looked at the three pictures on the edge of my desk. One is Margaret and my wedding picture, taken almost thirty-six years ago. The one by that is a family picture, taken on a vacation about a decade after the wedding picture was taken. I'm in the back, sitting on the grass, leaning on a big old oak tree with Margaret in my arms and our three children, Benjamin John (BJ), Charlotte Elizabeth (Charlie), and Margaret Jane (Maggie) sitting around us. The other picture is of my four small grandkids, sitting around last years Christmas tree. Each one of those pictures reminds me just how great my life has been.

There's a knock on my office door. I look up and can't help the smile that spreads on my face. My wife is standing there, her blond hair turned silver with time. She still looks beautiful though. "You ready to go?" she asks.

"Yeah, hold on." I get up and grab my coat from the closet and weave my fingers into hers. On our way out to the parking lot, I'm thinking about my hands and how I saw them earlier. "Do these look old to you?" I ask the woman beside me, lifting the hand in hers up so she can see it.

"Of course not," she smiles and lays her head on my shoulder as we walk out to the car.

Maybe I'm not as old as I think after all.


End file.
